MSA Week 4 - Deena Larsen's Carving in Possibility

Overview

• Musings on the story of David and Goliath are reflected by carving the head of Michelangelo’s statue of David

• Author description:
  • Carving in Possibilities is a short Flash piece. By moving the mouse, the user carves the face of Michelangelo's David out of speculations about David, the crowd watching David and Goliath, the sculptor, and the crowds viewing the sculpture.
  • Lets you experience an instantiation of a sculpture--from the story to the scultpure [sic]--to well beyond. You can carve as many possibilities as you like--the ways reality could go are endless. Turn off the sound if the chopping away at your beliefs becomes annoying. (http://deenalarsen.net/works/index.html)

Textual / Digital Modalities

• Text pops up with the short sound of stone being carved
• Acts of continual transformation:
  • It allows the reader to “play” it as if it were a game rather than a poem
  • The reader has to actively move the mouse, slow and careful movements required to ensure any of the text is not missed till the sculpture is complete

• Text appears one by one and in no specific sequence, in various colors, sizes, and fonts, which might indicate different voices.
  • A mosaic of dialogic voices related to the multiple contexts evoked by the intertextual references
    • David: "A hero... His stone ready... His arm confident..."
    • Goliath: "Eyes watchful... The neck of a bull... Hands of a killer..."
    • The crowd watching the battle: "We waited as the wind blew in our faces. We did not know where to run."
    • Michelangelo's point of view: "I could feel him... Under me watching... As I chipped away..."
    • Crowd viewing the sculpture: "What is it that we set in stone?"

• The only pattern that emerges in the piece is the requirement of moving between three different spaces to continue that particular experience's poem.
  • Beginning a new sculpting session is also repetitive: the text circle that says "sculpt again" turns into "for another reality" when we hover over the link.
  • Exiting the game and hovering over the the "exit here" circle means that we are "leaving all the other ghosts behind" when we close the game.

Analysis

• The user is able to 'carve out' different textual combinations and readings of the poem through choice and exploration.
• It demonstrates that a writer's legacy and memory can survive through art and writing – similar theme of life/reality/existence addressed in more traditional works like Keat’s Ode to Beaumont and Fletcher, Milton’s works
• The work only exists through the interaction between humans and a computer. (machine intelligence)
  • the mouse-chisel analogy -> the keyboard as handwriting
    • even the slightest movement can produce an indelible line – the act of sculpting becomes an allusion to the art of meaning making
  • CONTRAST to the fact that that the 'reader' of this piece has no say in the image that results from their "carving"
• Questions how the statue relates to its existence or that of other statues,

“materiality should be understood as existing in complex dynamic interplay with content, coming into focus or fading into the background, depending on what performances the work enacts” (Hayles). What role does materiality play in this work?